Scott Traub

I currently work for a Washington think tank of the liberal persuasion, where I have a fellowship to explore the issue of inequality of our health care system.

Americans are already starting to see the benefits of health care reform. The new law requires health insurance companies to end their most indefensible practice: rescinding coverage after a policyholder gets sick. In recent days insurers have rushed to announce that they will end rescissions immediately.

The insurers decided to act quickly after they were whacked by some bad publicity. An investigative report by Reuters by correspondent Murray Waas said that one of the nation’s biggest insurers, WellPoint, was targeting women with breast cancer for fraud investigations that could lead to rescissions.

Although WellPoint fiercely denied singling out breast cancer patients for scrutiny, it acknowledged using computer algorithms to search for a range of conditions that applicants would likely have known about at the time they applied.